Pat Holden, Optimum Releasing (22/05/09)

Holden’s latest, following 2005’s The Long Weekend, is mean, moody and eager to impress. It’s also a very sincere film (achingly so at times). Dominated by the performances of its two leads, Nicky Bell and Liam Boyle, here playing 1979 football hooligans itching for adventure, it’s a dark and claustrophobic ride, and a lot of it takes place on trains.

Frustrated from the word go, Bell plays Carty, stuck in a dead-end job, sketching his time away thinking about sex, and desperate to give his life some meaning. Boyle, as angst-ridden dragon-chaser Elvis, is prone to quoting random poetry and lives in the sort of flat only found on film sets. Elvis wants to leave behind the violence of the terraces and do a David Bowie by escaping to Berlin, with Carty as his Iggy Pop. Carty on the other hand is having none of it. What he wants is the bloodshed and the brotherhood of the gang.

Taken from Kevin Sampson’s book, Awaydays (for which Sampson also wrote the screenplay), treats its protagonists as working class romantics with an obsession for the right footwear. Early flowering football casuals, their dedication to territorial ambition is absolute, and nothing is allowed to get in their way.

What this means on the ground is a kind of ongoing bloody, Stanley knife slashed campaign as the troops fall, one by one, victims of their own desire and violence. For Elvis, at one end of the spectrum – world weary, coming over all emotional, a sort of pretty version of Morrissey – it’s all too much, whilst for Carty – all sharp cheekbones and narrowing eyes – it’s his life.

Fortunately for him, it's Boyle who has the meatier role (and the easier ride), wallowing in the mayhem as he climbs the gang ladder until he finally gets what he wants, and everything goes tragically wrong. Bell has a more difficult job on his hands, forced to dance about in his pants, and to spout the kind of earnestly theatrical dialogue that even James McAvoy would baulk at.

In the end Awaydays is rather like the train that links all of its key scenes; beautifully assembled, and looks good (if a little grimy), plus it sounds great (though if you listen hard you won’t hear The Dooley’s on this authentic 1979 soundtrack). Unfortunately the journey itself also takes a little longer than was suggested by the finely tuned words in the timetable, and you may not like where eventually you end up.

review: Allen Therisa

awaydaysthemovie.com